


Patience and Love

by Higgles123



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 08:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30086061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Higgles123/pseuds/Higgles123
Summary: Hello lovelies. This fic is maybe a little OOC (although I’ve tried hard not to make it so) but the truth is that I’ve felt incredibly suicidal today and my bipolar is all over the fucking place, so I wrote this to try and help myself when all I really wanted to do was take all the tablets out of the cupboard and down them. So if nobody wants to read this or you think it’s complete drivel, I won’t be offended but I’ll tag you guys anyway. Much love, Chloe
Relationships: Bane (DCU)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Patience and Love

It was the subtle things Bane noticed at first. Instead of a full face of make up, it was just mascara and a touch of concealer. Freshly washed hair was no longer styled and instead shoved up in a messy bun on top of her head. It was the desperate attempts to keep herself busy by cleaning things that were already clean or bringing out the crossword book she once swore was for old people. It was the sleeping in an hour or so later than usual and taking slightly longer to do the most simple of tasks.

But now those subtle signs were as bright as the tackiest neon light hanging over a brothel door. There were days of eating and eating even though he knew she wasn’t hungry followed by days of eating nothing at all. The sleeping in until after lunch and going to bed after dinner time. There was the vacant looks and the smiles that didn’t reach the eyes; the days and weeks without showering or brushing her teeth.

He had tried his best to get through to her; to cheer her up. He bought her gifts; things he knew she would love and suggested going out to places she enjoyed. But each gift would be received politely then put aside, and each suggestion was declined in favour of staying home and sleeping because she was “tired”. Bane himself was growing tired; tired of her self pity and wallowing behaviour.

“Something is troubling you again today, brother,” Barsad commented knowingly when he walked into the gym area of the warehouse to see Bane doing push ups at an excessively faster pace than usual.

Bane continued to push himself up and down on his muscled arms; his breath coming out as a pant from beneath his mask, and Barsad waited patiently for him to finish. Standing up, Bane gratefully accepted the towel Barsad held out to him and used it to wipe the sweat from his face and the back of his neck.

“It’s Saskia,” he sighed finally.

“I surmised that much already,” Barsad smirked. “Is she still not feeling herself?”

“No, she’s not and I’ve had enough of it. I am finding myself most annoyed by the mere sight of her, moping around the house and lying in that godforsaken pit she calls our bed.”

“She’s depressed, Bane. It is usual behaviour for someone feeling such a way.”

“And just what on earth does she have to feel depressed about, Barsad?” Bane asked with venom lacing his tone. “She wants for nothing and she is healthy and well. She has never had to endure the suffering or hardship of either yourself or I, nor plenty of other people around the globe. So, tell me Barsad, what exactly does she find herself depressed over? Is the purple shade of our duvet not to her liking? Or is it perhaps that the salad she insists on ordering from the deli on the other side of town isn’t made from all organic produce?”

“You and I have always been honest with one another, brother, have we not?” Barsad murmured, wondering how best to say what it was he wanted to.

“You may speak frankly with me now just as you always do if that is what you are trying to ask.”

“In that case then I shall. My wife used to suffer with low moods just as Saskia does…” Barsad paused for a moment, and Bane resisted the urge to offer comfort to his only true friend when the man swallowed down the lump in his throat that always appeared when he spoke about his deceased wife or child. “…And like you, I once was ignorant to the true nature of such an illness. After all, she came from a good family and had never faced any of the struggles my own family had, yet she would spend days lying in bed, staring at the wall and barely speaking. I wont lie, brother, I began to resent her for it. I couldn’t understand what gave her the right to feel such a way when there was seemingly nothing to feel that way over, but then one day she went for a bath. Sometimes she would be in the bath for hours, topping up the hot water and shriveling up like a prune, but this one day she had only been in there for around ten minutes. I don’t know why I couldn’t shake the feeling that something just wasn’t quite right. I knocked on the door and when she didn’t answer I unlocked it from the outside and burst in to find her bleeding out in the bathtub. I don’t even remember getting her to the hospital; I don’t remember anything apart from the dread in my stomach and the ache in my heart, wondering if she was going to live or die.

As I sat beside her hospital bed, the doctor came to speak to me. He told me that my wife’s feelings were not necessarily caused by any particular thing, but rather that they were caused by a chemical imbalance in her brain. Of course, I scoffed at his notion because I knew for a fact my wife took her medication religiously so how could there be such an imbalance? The doctor explained that even those people who take medication for physical health conditions are not well all of the time; that medication keeps the symptoms at bay the majority of the time but not always.

It was only after almost losing my wife that I finally understood that she wasn’t just moping about or wallowing in self pity. She was sick and she didn’t have a choice about whether or not she felt that way. Just as Saskia doesn’t have a choice about whether or not she feels the way she does.”

Behind his mask, Bane chewed at his lip and his eyes narrowed as he took in Barsad’s words and also his story. He already knew the very things that Barsad had said; he knew what caused people to feel low in mood and that was when it hit him. He wasn’t annoyed with Saskia because of her behaviour and her illness. He was annoyed at himself because he was unable to help her.

“If you love her, brother, then you don’t need to understand what she is going through,” Barsad clapped a hand on Bane’s shoulder. “You just need to be there for her.”

… … …

Saskia was sat up in bed, staring at the television but she wasn’t really looking. She was tired but she found that she couldn’t sleep. She was trapped inside her own self created limbo; a place she couldn’t escape no matter how hard she tried. She hated herself for feeling this way, and she wished that it was as easy as people said it was all over social media. After all, she ate well for the most part, she exercised and tried to think positively; she took her medication and attended appointments with her psychologist, yet her mind still continued to do this to her. It continued to flare up out of nowhere to torture her. Sometimes the torture lasted for only hours and was gone before anyone even noticed how she had felt, and other times it hurt her for days and weeks on end.

Closing her eyes, she tried to force out a tear; a tangible manifestation of her internal agony but nothing would come out. Launching the remote control across the room in a fit of temper, she wanted to scream with anger but she didn’t even have the energy to do that either.

The bedroom door creaked open and her heart lurched when Bane stepped inside, wearing only shorts and his top half still dripping wet from the shower he had just taken. He barely even glanced at her and despite the ache in her chest, she still could not cry. Things had been strained between them for the last couple of weeks, while she had been stuck in her funk and she knew that Bane was losing patience with her. She knew that he believed her to be self-pitying, and she wondered how long it would be before he put an end to them; him and her. Perhaps if she was really lucky he would put her out of her misery and kill her then she need never have to feel this way ever again.

“Have you eaten anything today?” he asked as he peered into the wardrobe for a clean vest.

“I’m not really hungry,” Saskia mumbled.

“Nevertheless, you must eat before you fade away into nothing,” his eyes were surprisingly soft upon her when he turned around and walked towards the bed. Sitting down, Bane cupped Saskia’s cheek tenderly and she leaned into his hand. “I fear I must ask your forgiveness, Saskia.”

“For what?” she pulled back slightly, her brow furrowed.

“For my lack of understanding with regards to how you’ve been feeling.”

Saskia opened her mouth to tell him that he didn’t need to apologise and that he had every right to be annoyed at her behaviour, but Bane placed a finger against her mouth and gave a slight shake of his head to silence her words.

“I do not always have the easiest time admitting when I am wrong,” he spoke once more, and Saskia could sense his discomfort by the way his eyes darted slightly to the left as though he could not look her in the eyes completely. “Nor do I often apologise, if ever. However, I owe you a rather large one, and I hope you’ll accept it?”

“Well you know for someone to accept your apology, it’s usually customary for you to actually apologise,” Saskia grinned, her eyes twinkling playfully for the first time in a long time. “But I don’t want you to apologise to me, Bane. I don’t expect you to make things better for me, and I don’t even expect you to understand what it is I’m feeling. I also acknowledge that I’m hard to live with when I’m like this, and for that I’m the one who is truly sorry. But there is one thing you can do for me right now if you want?”

“Anything,” Bane answered without hesitation.

“Just hold me for a while?”

Bane’s eyes crinkled and Saskia knew that he was smiling. Lying down on the bed, he pulled her down so that her head was resting upon his chest and he could wrap his arm around her. He couldn’t lie and pretend that he understood what she was going through, and while gifts and other such gestures may not help, he had realised that patience and love would. He almost chuckled to himself because patience and love were two things that he would never have thought himself capable of, yet as he brushed Saskia’s blonde hair back from her face and her eyes fluttered up to look at him with such adoration he knew that where she was concerned, he was a changed man.


End file.
